Zolani stood at the back of his parents’ modest two-bedroom home, looking down the hill towards the bottom where traffic was always heaviest at this time of the day.

“Everyone in a hurry to get nowhere,” he said aloud. He was a tall twenty-four-year-old Xhosa man who tended to muse and meditate rather than jol and jive. He was an atypical example of his generation, and he felt apart from his peers. He shook his head solemnly as he looked at the tangled snarl of traffic, every driver battling to cut in front of the other and be more aggressive than those encircling him.

“Such a true mark of our times, isn’t it?” he remarked rhetorically to his friend, Masimbonge.

“What is?” Masimbonge asked, as he briefly looked up from typing a WhatsApp message.

“The way everyone is so self-absorbed and only looking out for Number One. We’ve lost our humanity, my friend. We’ve become strangers to each other and even to ourselves. We live past each other, not with each other. We keep our gazes firmly fixed on a financially secure future, and lose sight of our ethics and responsibility to our fellow man.”

Masimbonge was used to Zolani’s philosophical introspection, and he had learned long ago either to simply listen and not comment, or engage Zolani in conversation at great risk to his own beliefs and sanity. Zolani had a way of making you question everything you thought you knew.

“Money talks, bra,” he now said, hoping his friend would carry on having a discussion with himself on the follies of man while he, Masimbonge, could continue his chat with his girlfriend, who was once again giving him grief about being too familiar with other girls. Could he help it if he was handsome and the girls couldn’t get enough of him?

“Yes, money talks and we listen. Like idiots lining up to hear words of wisdom from a fool who has been declared wise by bigger fools. Money talks and we seal our ears to reason and hear only the clink of coins and smell the ‘notes’ of notes.”

“Huh? Notes of notes?” Masimbonge asked, perplexed.

“Yes, ‘notes’ as in descriptors of scent in perfumery, like head or heart notes,” Zolani explained.

“Man, you’re weird,” Masimbonge said, with a shake of his head, and laughed.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Zolani retorted.

“By the way, that reminds me,” Masimbonge began, “you never told me why you walked out of your English exam last year. If I remember correctly, that’s why you’re repeating this year, isn’t it?” he asked.

It was a while before Zolani answered. Masimbonge was about to apologise for what he now realised could have been tactlessness on his part when Zolani turned to face him directly.

“Yes. I’m repeating this year because of my rash decision, an impulsive decision, which had consequences I had not thought of in my moment of recklessness. If I could go back to that moment in time, the very second when I decided to get up and walk out without finishing the exam, I wouldn’t lose my temper but complete the exam instead,” Zolani replied.

“Bra, forget it. Everything happens for a reason, you know that. What happened is done and dusted. No use wishing to turn back the clock now. Just tell me why you did what you did,” Masimbonge said. “I mean, you were always a hothead, but damn. To just walk out like that when you’re writing an exam…that was another kind of weirdness.”

“Trust me, mate, not a day has passed since then that I didn’t regret my walk-out. But some good has also come of that day, and perhaps everything does indeed happen for a reason,” Zolani responded. “For one thing, I’ve lost my hot temper, and for another, I weigh every decision carefully before I take any action. My impulsive nature has turned into a cautious one,” he admitted.

Masimbonge could sense that Zolani was ready to reveal what had happened on that day one year ago that had made an otherwise cautious and patient man act in such an uncharacteristically hasty and foolish manner. He put his phone down and settled back against the warm brick wall to listen, the far-off traffic noises fading into silence and even the twittering of the birds in the garden becoming a form of black noise.

Tell us: What do you think of Masimbonge and Zolani’s relationship?